Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie

by Sir William Francis Butler

It was now the middle of September, early enough still for summer travel, but it would soon be necessary to look out for some wintering-ground, where wood for a hut and fuel could be easily obtained, and where the grass promised food for the horses during the long months of snow.

Almost every part of this vast ocean of grass had become thoroughly known to Red Cloud. Land once crossed by a red man is ever after a living memory to him. He can tell, years after he has passed along a trail, some of the most trifling landmarks along it; a bush, a rock, a sharply marked hill, will be all treasured in his memory; and though years may have elapsed since his eye last rested upon this particular portion of the great prairie, he will know all its separate features, all the little hills, courses, or creeks which lie hidden amid the immense spaces of this motionless ocean.

For some days the Sioux had been conning over in his mind the country, seeking some spot lying within easy reach of where he was now moving which yielded what our party required—timber, fuel, and grass. A few years earlier he had camped at the point of junction of two rivers, the Red Deer and the Medicine, not more than four days’ journey to the north-west of where he now was. He remembered that amid a deep thicket of birch, poplar, and cotton-wood, there stood a large group of pine-trees. If fire had spared that part of the prairie, he knew that the alluvial meadows along the converging rivers, would yield rich store of winter food for the horses. He knew, too, that in other respects the spot had many recommendations in its favour; it lay almost in the centre of that neutral zone between the Cree country and the sandy wastes of the Blackfeet nation, and that it was therefore safe in winter from the roving bands of these wild tribes, whose warfare is only carried on during the months of spring, summer, and autumn. All these things combined made him fix upon this spot for the winter camping-ground, and he began to shape the course of the party more to the north, to see if the place held still in its sheltered ridges all the advantages it had possessed when he had seen it for the first and last time.

Riding along one sunny mid-day, he explained to me the prospect before us.

“It is getting late in the season,” he said; “all the grass is yellow; the wind has begun to rustle in the dry seeds and withered prairie flowers; the frost of night gets harder and colder. At any moment we may see a great change; that far off sky-line, now so clear cut against the prairie, would become hidden; dense clouds would sweep across the sky, and all the prairie would be wrapped in snow-drift.

“The winter in this north land is long and severe; the snow lies for months upon the plains, in many feet in thickness it will rest upon yon creek, now so full of bird-life. The cold will then be intense; all the birds, save the prairie-grouse, the magpie, and the whisky jack, will seek southern lands; the buffalo will not, however, desert us, they may move farther north into the Saskatchewan, and wolves, foxes, and coyotes will follow in their wake. Neither horse nor man can then brave for any time the treeless plains.

“We must prepare for the winter,” he went on, “and my plan is this: some days’ march from this is a spot which, when I last saw it, had around it all that we shall require for our winter comfort. Where two rivers come together there stands, sheltered among hills, a clump of pine-trees. The points of the rivers are well wooded, and the marshes along the banks hold wild vetch, and the pea plant of the prairie grows through the under-bush, high above the snow, giving food to horses in the worst seasons of the year.

“I don’t know any fitter place for winter camp in all the hundreds of miles that are around us. We are now bound for that spot, and if things are as I last saw them, we shall make our hut in the pine wood and settle into our winter-quarters ere the cold has come. We have still much to do, and it is time we set to work.”

I heard with joy these plans for the winter. The life was still so new to me—the sense of breathing this fresh bright atmosphere, and of moving day by day through this great ocean of grass, was in itself such pleasure, that I had latterly ceased almost altogether to think much about the future, feeling unbounded confidence in my Indian friend’s skill and forethought.